Chapter 132 - Heart-Refining
Chapter 132 - Heart-Refining
s.h.i.+ Potian raised his eyebrows, sneered in his head and thought, "Trying to compete with my Golden Crystal Body with some random defensive art? That"s recklessly stupid kid."
“In that case, let"s find out what you can do.”
Leaning his body forwards, s.h.i.+ Potian’s speed immediately raised to its limits, leaving shreds of pure gold afterimages behind him. In terms of speed he was only slightly slower than Lin Qi, by less than just ten percent.
Less than three meters away from Ye Chen, s.h.i.+ Potian crooked his right arm and then launched a great punch.
This punch was simple and straightforward, it contained a condensed yet tremendously powerful stream of power, and it caused an especially ear-piercing noise that caused a great deal of pain in their ears.
Ye Chen showed no signs of stepping back. Instead he also took a step forward and threw out his own punch.
Thud!
The two of them both stepped back quickly and temporarily lost the control of their bodies.
“d.a.m.n! Not even the slightest bit of power contained in their punches has gushed out, all of it"s been thrown at each other!”
“In terms of strength, the two of them are at the same stage. But, I"m not sure if s.h.i.+ Potian has used his full-strength.”
“To be honest, I truly can’t tell which of them is stronger. Their powers were both burst out at the exact same moment that their bodies made physical contact, so it’s hard to tell unless you are in the fight yourself.”
Instantly, people started whispering among themselves.
s.h.i.+ Potian stopped stepping back, and showed a slightly shocked expression on his face. He was called ‘Stone Man’ by others, not only because of his great defensive power, but also because of his amazing strength. Without using any of his Zhen Qi, he had once killed a rank 3 demonic beast bare-handed. He even dared to challenge a rank 4 beasts with just his punches alone. However, this Ye Chen who was a couple of years younger than him, possessed great talent when it came to sword skills and had already comprehended the half-step sword intent; moreover, now it appeared that he also had an amazing defensive power. How was this even possible?
From s.h.i.+ Potian’s aspect, the more outstanding Ye Chen was, the more he wanted to destroy Ye Chen’s confidence and make Ye Chen live in shame for the rest of his life.
“Let’s find out how many of my punches you can take!”
Speeding up again, s.h.i.+ Potian darted up to Ye Chen and then he launched a new torrent of punches. That golden s.h.i.+ning fist of his left countless shreds of afterimages in the air, and for every single punch he released, he would use all of his strength.
Ye Chen certainly didn"t show any fear at all and launched his own attacks.
After a hundred moves, s.h.i.+ Potian let out a malicious grin and then yelled out.
“Take this!!”
"He"s not going to defend?!" Ye Chen frowned and thought.
s.h.i.+ Potian seemed to have completely given up on his defense, and crazily increased his attacking speed. If he fought directly against him, he would inevitably suffer a few attacks; but if he does not launch a counter attack, he would fall at a disadvantage, after all, even the firmest defense would eventually show its weakness.
After pondering briefly, Ye Chen also decided to give up on his defense, and launched another series of heavy punches with his pair of jade-like heavy fists.
Bang!
Bang!
Both of them were struck by a punch that even sent up puffs of sparks up into the air.
s.h.i.+ Potian began laughing in a vicious manner. That punch seemed to have had absolutely no effect on him. He dashed out once more and launched his attacks at Ye Chen.
As the series of thunderous punches continued, even Ye Chen and s.h.i.+ Potian had no idea about how many punches managed to strike their bodies, they only felt waves of fierce shocks from every corner of their upper bodies; even their heads had been struck by those punches a few times. Compared to them, the younger generation talents who had been watching the display were dumbfounded. The only thing they knew was that the two men in the arena had been fighting against each other in an insane manner, both of them were only attacking as if they were both actually fierce wild beasts at this moment, neither of them bothered to defend against those attacks. It seemed like, the one who could deliver one more punch than the other, would be the one to win the fight.
“What a pair of lunatics! If anyone was to encounter one of them in the arena…how horrifying would that be?! Both of them have amazing defensive power…”
“Neither of them could break the other’s defense, not to mention us! We can only tickle them!”
“I know about s.h.i.+ Potian’s defensive art, it’s called Magical Crystal Spell, but what is that Ye Chen’s defensive art? How can it be so powerful, it"s not at all weaker than s.h.i.+ Potian"s!”
After a long confrontation, s.h.i.+ Potian slightly lost his patience. Ye Chen seems to be more powerful than he had previously imagined, and he probably wouldn’t have too much advantage only with this Golden Crystal Body. So, he would have to try and use something else if he wanted to defeat him.
“[Heavenly Strike]!”
s.h.i.+ Potian leapt up into the air while his pair of golden fists suddenly began s.h.i.+ning in an even more dazzling manner than before, he then abruptly struck down towards Ye Chen.
“Finally, he used a martial skill!”
Against s.h.i.+ Potian’s attack, Ye Chen launched the second movement of the [Tyrant"s Fist], Lone Domination. All the surrounding Yuan Qi was instantly drained by his fist and merged with his power.
“Go!”
What shocked Ye Chen was that, for the very first time, his Tyrant’s Fist was being suppressed by another fist skill. The stream of power released from his punch, that had always been so destructive, was now shattering bit by bit, as if someone had placed a string of bombs inside it.
Woos.h.!.+
Ye Chen immediately took tens of steps backwards.
s.h.i.+ Potian closely followed him and instantly threw out another heavy punch.
The Tyrant"s Fist was being suppressed, so Ye Chen could only pull out the Hidden Cloud Sword. He swung his sword with all of his strength, and then used the half-step sword intent.
Followed by a loud series of clas.h.i.+ng sounds, the great stream of power contained in s.h.i.+ Potian’s punch and the fierce Sword Qi violently crashed into each other. Neither the Sword Qi nor the punch"s power could suppress the other.
“The [Heavenly Strike] is also a low-ranked Earth Realm fist skill, yet, it is capable of suppressing most other martial skills. The shocking amount of explosive power contained in the Heavenly Strike can be triggered with only a single slight touch, it is indeed amazing.” Lou Hanshan was well informed of martial arts for a long time. As a very experienced martial artist, he recognised s.h.i.+ Potian’s fist skill with a single glance. Ye Chen’s sword Qi could resist that punch only because of the Sword intent. The sword intent naturally contained fierce power, if the sword Qi merged with it was launched by the sword artist, it would certainly become more solid and destructive.
“Try resisting this!!”
Now, s.h.i.+ Potian had finally used his most powerful martial art. He clenched his fists, and swiftly launched a new round of attacks with both his fists. His pair of bright s.h.i.+ning fists swooshed forward like a pair of roaring dragons, as if they were darting out of the ocean filled with rage; his punches seemed to be capable of shaking the entire world.
Boom! Boom!
An eye-piercing golden light shrouded half of the plaza, the great power contained in the punches was perfectly hidden, only thunderous booms so great that they could even drive people crazy, rose directly into the air. Meanwhile, sharp encompa.s.sing airwaves pressed down towards Ye Chen.
This was the first time that Ye Chen had an encounter with an opponent that was so hard to deal with. But after a brief thought, he realised that this was totally reasonable. s.h.i.+ Potian was one of the four core disciples of the Emerald Martial Palace who was at the same stage as Liu Wuxiang; except for Young Master Emerald, who had already stepped into the Clasping Yuan Realm, it seemed that among all the younger generation martial artists, the ’North Snow Fast Blade’, Lin Qi was the only one who could definitely beat him. As for Ye Chen himself, he had just broken into the Late Condensing Reality Realm. Although his Zhen Qi was stable and solid, it wasn’t as pure as the Zhen Qi of the peak Late Condensing Reality Realm warriors, and could only barely compete against ordinary martial artists in Late Condensing Reality Realm. Facing s.h.i.+ Potian, his only advantage was the half-step sword intent.
Sword intent!
“I have no choice but to launch that move now.”
Within a moment, Ye Chen had stopped hesitating and made up his mind.
His left foot took a step forward, Ye Chen raised the sword in his right hand high into the air and merged his entire mind with the Hidden Cloud Sword; right after that, he swung the sword down.
Puff!
Not a single person could describe how fast this move was, because before they could clearly see exactly what move Ye Chan had made, a streak of thick and solid sword Qi had already been sent out. This sword Qi streak was as fast as lightning, it condensed into a white beam of light in the air and then swiftly darted into the golden light surrounding s.h.i.+ Potian.
Quietly, the Golden light was split in two and the punching power was entirely wiped out, just like a thin layer of snow evaporating under the scorching sunlight.
Crack!
A new wound appeared on s.h.i.+ Potian’s ribs area, blood instantly came gus.h.i.+ng out.
He didn’t even know how it had happened.
“What, what sword skill is this? How could it be so fast?!” After Ye Chen launched that move, the arena fell silent once again, then finally, somebody couldn’t help themselves and yelled out.
Elders from all the powerful inst.i.tutions showed confusion on their faces, none of them could tell what exactly had happened. Only Yuan Xuemei seemed to be pondering something with her brows furrowed, and then her look abruptly changed in an exaggerated manner as if she suddenly saw something unbelievable. She slightly opened her cherry-like lips, and paused for quite a long while.
“It’s the ‘[Heart Refining]’”said Zhuang Qingxian word by word with a darkened face.
“Leader, what is ‘Heart Refining’?” Liu Wuxiang hurriedly asked.
“In the ancient legends, a sword artist had once created a special sword art for the sake of achieving revenge. This special sword art had only had one move called ‘Heart Refining’. In order to launch this move, one has to be extremely focused, they should have unified his spirit, body and soul, but that was only the first step; the second step was even more strict, it requires the sword artist to see the sword as a guide, and then release all of his power through the sword within one moment, to harm, or even to kill an enemy, who was more powerful than the sword artist himself. However, after launching this move, the sword artist would feel weakness and exhaustion for a while. Normally, none of those ordinary sword artists could launch this move, except those who has the innocent heart of a child or have already comprehended the true sword intent. This Ye Chen has already touched the edge of sword intent, no wonder he had managed to launch this move.”
When he was explaining to Liu Wuxiang, Zhuang Qingxian was also wondering where Ye Chen had gotten the manual of ‘Heart Refining’. After all, to learn the legendary sword skill wasn’t as easy as it sounded like, with just a little bit of carelessness, he could push himself too far and be possessed by his inner devils or even hurt himself. It was very dangerous.
Yuan Xuemei understood this clearer than anyone else, because in that manual she had given to Ye Chen, there was a chapter which had introduced the ‘Heart Refining’. However, that was only a brief introduction, not a specific guiding manual at all. She was also wondering how Ye Chen had actually managed to learn that powerful sword skill. He couldn’t just have practiced according to the brief introduction using his own guesses, could he? But how could he manage to make that move and deliver it with such great effect?
“How could this even happen?” s.h.i.+ Potian stared at Ye Chen.
His ‘Heavenly Strike’ was way more powerful than he had just shown, if Ye Chen didn’t have any other skills, he could certainly defeat Ye Chen within ten moves. Just ten moves! But Ye Chen made that surprising and destructive move, that single move straight away disabled him from continuing the fight. s.h.i.+ Potian had never even seen it coming.
Ye Chen’s face looked slightly pale, but not as bad as Zhuang Qingxian"s was.
Indeed, he had learned this ‘Heart Refining’ from that manual Yuan Xuemei had given him. The theories stated in that manual had shared features with sword intent, the main difference had been that, sword intent could stay activated for a relatively longer period of time, while the ‘Heart Refining’ could not. The greatest effect of the ‘Heart Refining’ was to allow the sword artist’s power largely increase in a moment and kill the enemy with that surprise move.
Puff!
s.h.i.+ Potian let out a mouthful of blood and couldn’t keep standing straight anymore. His Golden Crystal Body was broken, it was very harmful to him. Without resting for at least three months, he probably wouldn"t recover to his peak state. At this moment, he was even weaker than an early Condensing Reality warrior.
An emerald Martial Palace’s inner elder voluntarily walked up and took s.h.i.+ Potian out of the arena.
On the Purple Sun Martial School’s side.
“This kid is horrible. Does he have any other secret abilities that we don’t know about? Is Zhu Lieyang powerful enough to deal with him? Will he survive again this time? If so, it will be a lot more difficult to kill him in the future.” The Elder who sat beside Zhang Qing sent his voice to the Head Elder of the Purple Sun Martial School using Zhen Qi.
The Head Elder snorted scornfully and said, “Don’t misjudge Zhu Lieyang, he had already killed quite a lot of geniuses, a few of them were even more powerful than this Ye Chen. Besides, we only need to warn him about this ‘Heart Refining’ move. After he uses that skill, I a.s.sume that he won’t have too much power left anyway.”
”Exactly! Why didn’t I think of this? This skill is indeed effective, but it’ll certainly have some side effect.”
Sitting straight on his seat, Ye Chen’s face looked even paler than it had before. Nevertheless, deep down he was sneering all this time. His soul power was extremely strong, therefore, to launch the ‘Heart Refining’ was actually not such a big deal for him. Although he now seemed to be exhausted, he was just pretending, in order to prevent some hidden troubles in the future for being too outstanding. If he really needed to, he could even launch the ‘Heart Refining’ three or four times continuously.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Translated by: Law
Edited by: Jaggerjakk, Jatz